Energy Invasion Review

This game was reviewed on a PS4, it is also available on Nintendo Switch, PS Vita and PC. A code was provided by Sometimes You for review purposes.

Overview

Energy Invasion is a simplistic arcade game with inspirations derived from the classic arcade game “breakout” from way back in 1976. This game brings a new twist to the classic arcade game however with your ball not destroying bricks, but instead your ball shooting projectiles that destroy the bricks.

Gameplay

Energy Invasion being inspired from a classic arcade game, has easy to understand twin stick controls. In this game you have 3 game modes; Invasion Mode, Linear Mode and Endless Mode. You will gain lives as you destroy bricks, however if you lose all of your lives you will get the option to “continue (with penalties)”, those penalties being continuing with 5 lives to start off instead of the potentially 50+ you could have saved up, alongside this you will lose some of your overall score effecting your chance of appearing on the leader-board. Depending on the difficulty played, there are green, stationary enemies, that appear at the top left and top right of levels. If you played on normal difficulty these will shoot red projectiles at you that instantly kill you where as if you play on easy mode these enemies do nothing, the difficulty played on doesn’t have any effect on the ability to gain achievements so most will likely play on easy.

Invasion Mode: This mode has 25 levels of bricks which get progressively harder. The difficulty seemed to spike around level 19 and on by quite a bit, however with a game like this you where you are not punished severely for continuing, you can and should keep trying until eventually you beat the levels.

Linear Mode: This mode again has 25 levels of bricks getting progressively harder to clear however now they move towards you over time, resulting in an instant death similar to if you used up all of your lives in the previous mode though do not worry you can still continue. This mode is by far the most challenging with a couple of the levels pushing the line to being frustrating, but with some skill, luck and brute force you will get through every level eventually.

Endless Mode: As the name would suggest, this mode has an endless amount of levels, the bricks do not move towards you in this mode making it easier than Linear Mode. On the PS4 and PS Vita this mode will give you trophies for reaching level 30, Personally I played until level 55 before stopping as I had achieved all of the trophies when I hit level 30, I am unsure if you can continue in this mode like you can in the others because by the time I stopped playing I was gaining more lives than I was using resulting in over 70 excess lives but I would assume when your lives run out the mode ends.

Sound

Energy Invasion has some nice music tracks that play throughout your gaming session. All of the music is of an electronic style produced by the artist Nick R 61 who’s tracks can be listened to here Nick R 61 Soundcloud. I was slightly bothered by the fact the game has no volume slider, this was a slight problem for me due to the fact that the music plays at such a high volume leaving you with two options; lower the volume through your console settings or completely turn the music off in the game settings. For the record I lowered my volume because the soundtracks are a style I like and at a proper volume would gladly listen to in my free time.

Graphics

The graphics of this game are nice and bright, with an art style that has clear inspirations from space and galaxies. The only downside to having such a bright art style is when the developers decided to add an effect in some later levels where the level would go dark, this felt unneeded and pointless to me because it did not effect my ability to play the game well.

Summary

This game is a simplistic and challenging take on a classic arcade game. Due to the achievements in this game taking 3-4 hours maximum, I Imagine most buying this game will buy it for the achievements which in itself is a selling point. The game is fun but sadly does not have much, if any replay-ability outside of the endless mode which will only keep you occupied for so long. I do recommend buying it if you are a fan of classic arcade games or games they inspired.